News from The Guardian is that a film about the recent Tsunami disaster is in the planning stages.
Titled Hereafter, the film will tell the story of an American man who walks barefoot for 70 miles to try to find his missing wife and children. Filming is to take place in Indonesia later this year.
“This is a story of salvation, a tale of a man who realises exactly what he’s lost during his search to find it,” writer-director Michael Patwin told trade magazine Variety…
…Perhaps conscious of possible accusations of a distasteful cash-in, producers intend to donate a “significant portion” of the film’s takings to disaster relief efforts.
Well that’s a good act, but there’s two things that really strike me about this movie. One is that it seems far more palatable for Hollywood to dramatise foreign tragedies than it is for ones closer to home, it’s a very short amount of time after the Boxing Day Tsunami to be writing a script when compared to the uproar regarding any dramatisation of the Twin Towers.
The really big hitter for me though is that this story about this hugely devasting natural disaster in Indonesia is going to focus around an American and his family. Another film of American endurance over diversity, and another movie to turn the eye away from where the real focus should be.
Personally I think the best thing for any project based on the Tsunami should be a collection of short films, taking Writers and Directors from around the areas affected by the disaster. Add in perhaps a couple of major Writers or Directors for some more box office weight, and there you have your movie. I think that’s a much better idea, then you’ll get a cross section of stories and styles, the majority focussed on the countries that were actually affected. Instead, we’ll see another America triumphs movie.
